BT added [...] more interesting items
Well, perhaps, but let's stick to numbers. We can't have you diverting from your "facts" to "opinions" else we won't get anywhere. Wizardry 1 has 100 items, while Bard's Tale 1 and 2 both have 2^7 items. Wizardry 2, however, has 2^7 items too, yet it came out three years earlier.
BT added [...] music, better graphics
I never said that Wizardry had better graphics and music. In fact, I said that Wizardry had better gameplay.
BT added [...] more diverse locations
What does this mean? The first Bard's Tale majorly declined the dungeon design. It took Wizardry's well laid out dungeon levels and turned them into mazes. Just check out these
Wizardry maps and compare them to maps of the earlier Bard's Tale dungeons like the sewers and catacombs. The dungeons kind of got better as the game progressed, I suppose. That's something for you to hold on to at least.
Then if we compare the dungeon levels in Bard's Tale 3 to the dungeon levels in Wizardry 5 it again loses. Weren't the levels in Bard's Tale 3 constrained to 22x22 squares still? Talk about outdated compared to
these.
BT added buffs [...] more spells [...] and added range based combat and encounters, something MM1 and Wiz didn't add until much later.
Indeed. In fact the spell selection (but not the spell casting system) is the best thing about The Bard's Tale. I've mentioned before in another thread how it was really fun piling on the buffs as you unlocked them, and then walking around with lots of icons lighting up the interface. It's a shame that it fell behind only a year later when Might and Magic 1 came out with an extra 17 spells, even though it lacked summoning (but had better buffs).
Yes, your points are opinion, as if somehow your posting pictures and stuff is somehow going to make the world sit up and agree.
BT dramatically improved on it, though. This is not my hypothesizing, this here is fact.
Look, MM1 was a poor rip off of BT, if it helps you sleep at night, you can call it "an homage" in a fancy French accent. I'm easy. MM1 came out after BT and has less features, a very cheap interface, and poor balance. It would be fairer to compare games that came out in the same year, such as BT2 and MM1, but that seems to irk you.
No. Might and Magic 1 has far
more features than Bard's Tale 2, and my previous post compared the number of items and the wilderness areas of both of these games, so saying that the comparisons "irk" me makes no sense. We could compare Might and Magic 2 to Bard's Tale 3 if you want, but that's an even bigger victory for Might and Magic.
The fact that MM1 has zones with plenty of maps, more doesn't equal better, and like the rest of the game, the areas were of poor quality.
Have you actually played The Bard's Tale 2? Have you walked the wilderness between towns? It's fucking boring and barren. There's nothing there except town entrances, a few dungeon entrances and a couple of places required for the plot, all within a 32x48 area. The wilderness in Might and Magic plays a much larger part in the game, with different types of terrain, teleporters, traps, and little things to do such as climbing the trees in D3. It's not even comparable.
By 86', the RPG world moved past ASCII art in games, but apparently no-one told JVC.
I admire the moxy of putting the game together, but again, it didn't do it for me. To each his own. Openness (or non-linearity) must be coupled with something worth doing at your level. I didn't feel it in MM1, there were too many times where there was nothing to do at my level other than be constantly cursed by sprites. There was no sense of purpose, and roaming around felt just like that: like roaming around.
There's always
something to do in the game. In fact, if you play the game from the start and keep a list of things you discover, you'll have an ever increasing list of things to do until the last 20% of the game where the list starts shrinking. This is actually one of the key elements of the Might and Magic games.
The 0xE0 to 0xEF range being empty, eh? I somehow feel that my responses are an excuse for you to establish your deep, deep understanding of games or something. Who knows. I believe MM1 provided little innovation, looked dated for when it was released, and didn't bring anything new to the table. Some people find it fun. I didn't. You did, and you are trying to use memory locations and pictures to validate your opinion.
Not memory locations, item codes.
Here's the list of items from Might and Magic 1 and
here's the list of items from The Bard's Tale 3.
I can rattle off quite a few innovations that BT, the original brought and I've named them. MM2 was a galactic improvement, and I like the MM series.
Oh, there were some innovations all right. Like I said, the spells were great, especially the summons. The second game introduced distances from enemy groups, which improved combat somewhat. The day and night cycle in the first game changing the monster table in town was very nice indeed. Even the variety of themes crammed inside the third game was a nice touch.
In fact, I'm glad that in spite of JVC's crummy first effort that only a retard could love, he persevered.
Summoning
Sceptic.
Sorry. All kidding aside, I have about 8 copies of the original MM1. I promise I'll fire it up this weekend and try to make it to level 10 before I continue bitching or talking crazy.
Have fun. It's a good game.
